Charity begins at home. That’s what we are all taught. However how do you define home?
Many of us are now global citizens in that we may have citizenship ties to more than one country and sunk our roots, however briefly, in a whole host of others. Add to that the very real fact that most of us spend more time in our virtual “homes” than we do our actual ones vis-a-vis our blogs, social networking sites and other highly-frequented virtual stops and it all gets a lot more complicated. Those of us out there who haven’t embraced the changing face of society, economy and world may wonder what the big deal is since to them it all seems like a waste of time.
One net denizen, and friend of AB, has taken the concept of Social Media and used it for a very worthy cause. Beth Kanter has used Facebook, Twitter, her blog, and the community of virtual friends she has developed to aid one Cambodian orphan, Leng Sopharath, to college by raising US$1000. As this is a hefty financial undertaking for most families Beth raised awareness for her efforts through her various forums and together with 58 friends surpassed the initial goal and is now on her way to helping make the college dreams of yet another young Cambodian come true.
Each donation is only US$10 and I honestly spend more than that on lunch most days. I’ve decided to do my bit (my standards are if it makes me feel like a bad human being to Not do it then I should and it makes me feel really bad thinking of how much my parents spent on my college education compared to a teeny $10 donation) and I hope that many of the fat cats I know who similarly spent large amounts on their college educations will be sufficiently moved to be better human beings….we could all use the good karma right 
Please go here to make your contributions (wordpress unfortunately does not allow me to add in the really cool Chipin widget 
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Hello J. I appreciate what Kanter, AB and rest of your friends including yourself are doing, with noble intentions. Its truly remarkable that all of you are spending valuable time spreading the word. And that’s what counts. What I have to say hereon does not take away anything from everyone’s sincere efforts; its free for interpretation although its such a complete statement in itself.
You mentioned charity begins at home. This statement reminds me of the advice of my uneducated car mechanic. This 50+yr old wise man told me something on 6th Nov 2005 which stayed with me till date. While on the topic of making contributions to charitable foundations, he said if you have money to spare for charity, first take care of your own family, then parents, then siblings, cousins, friends, neighbors, city, your country in that order. I have known this man for years and am aware of his nonchalant mannerisms, straightalk and depth of thinking. Since it was the weekend, I surfed the net and came across a Biblical inference which said something identical about putting one’s own family and friends before any other responsibility. That day, I was humbled, not for the fact that a blue-collared worker was able to think so profoundly and just so clearly, but just how many amongst us actually knew about the true plight of distant ones in our own family tree and neighborhood to make such similar charitable actions of time & effort, money being just secondary.
The message is not to stop giving, but to give by starting at the root.
Cheers.